The subject disclosure is directed to the near field communications arts, the communications arts, the service providing arts, the radio communications arts, the mobile computing arts, document processing arts, and the like.
Near field communications (“NFC”) is a set of standards for smartphones and similar portable user devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity, e.g., a few centimeters. The short-range wireless technologies employed in NFC operations typically require a distance of 10 cm or less. NFC requires an initiator and a target, with the initiator capable of actively generating an RF field that can power a passive target or communicate with an active target. This arrangement allows for the use of targets having a very simplistic form, such as tags, key fobs, stickers, cards, etc., which do not require batteries. NFC tags may be read-only or rewriteable, and may be custom encoded. NFC tags may be configured to provide various communication speeds, memory, security, data storage, write endurance, etc. In some instances, the target may include a power source, e.g., NFC peer-to-peer communications, commonly referred to as NFC chips.
NFC tags are inexpensive and can be placed on a product without integrating NFC with the underlying product. Data can be written to an NFC tag that describes an intent. When an NFC enabled device “taps” or otherwise is brought into proximity with an NFC tag, it causes an application to be launched on the NFC enabled device to handle that intent. However, a severe limitation exists with respect to the usage of NFC tags: to make use of this automatic launch feature, the NFC tags are single purposed. That is, the data stored on them are associated with a single intent. When the NFC tag is tapped or establishes a communication channel with an NFC enabled device, the device's NFC dispatch system locates the appropriate application and launches it. There may be multiple applications that can satisfy the intent, but that set of applications are homogenous. For example, if the intent is to visit a web page and the device has multiple web browsers available, the user is presented with a choice as to which browser to use. If no application is associated with the intent, some systems query an application repository to locate an appropriate application. Furthermore, the aforementioned set of homogenous applications cannot implement completely different types of logic (e.g., asset management as opposed to client network configuration). In order to change the client behavior associated with the NFC tag, new data must be written, such that the next time an NFC enabled device taps or establishes a communications link with the tag, the new data will be read and a different application may be launched.
There are some uses of NFC tags that would benefit from multiple intents on a single NFC tag. For example, it would be useful to have a tag that could have both asset information for an inventory application and connectivity information to simplify the configuration of user devices for network connectivity. The current solution for enabling multiple intents is to use multiple tags.
However, the use of multiple tags can be problematic, for example when a manufacturer or user desires to have a single NFC “touch point” in the manufacturing of a product, but allow for multiple behaviors for NFC enabled devices. It may also be problematic for products with limited space on which to place NFC tags. Multiple tags may be a barrier to ease of use. If multiple NFC tags are used, an end user will have to examine the various touch points to determine the one that matches the current need. Thus, the ability to utilize a single tag would simplify user interactions. With respect to the usage of multiple tags, custom device resident software may be developed allowing examination of the device's current context to determine the user's current need and if the NFC Tag can cause the launch an appropriate application to satisfy that need.
Additional attempts to alleviate the aforementioned issues with multiple tag usage involve the use of an active NFC chip that can programmatically changes its data, but this is not practical in the majority of situations due to the relatively high unit cost. Furthermore, a user's current need is part of the user device's context and is unknown when the user's device touches the NFC chip. Currently, the sender, i.e., the entity acting as the NFC tag, launches an application that establishes the context for the NFC chip. Any NFC enabled device will see the NFC chip as an NFC tag with an intent associated with the sender's running application.
Thus, it would advantageous to provide a system and method that uses a single near field communication tag to specify multiple intents.